Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Not content with running the franchise into the ground over the past five years, Drayton's happy to do it for the next five

One long-time friend of Drayton McLane says he thinks McLane's final act as the Astros' owner will be to convince GM Ed Wade not to trade one of his favorite players, Hunter Pence, on McLane's watch

If this is true - then Ed Wade truly is in a ridiculous position. If Crane is inclined to keep Pence, and Drayton is trying to convince Wade to keep him, but Wade wants to trade him, there's nothing he can do. It's career suicide if he pulls the trigger and trades Pence. He's probably going to get fired, anyway, so why not try to keep both bosses happy?

But if Crane wants to trade Pence, and Drayton is pressuring him to keep him, then Drayton is clearly overstepping his bounds, and it makes me want to punch a wall. For all intents and purposes, McLane is no longer in charge of the Astros, and shouldn't try to influence his General Manager either way. On anything. If Drayton wanted to continue to wield influence, he should have held on to the team.

The fact that Selig has dragged his feet on approving this ownership change until mid-August is like Santa not showing up until January 12.

5 comments:

Blazemule
said...

I want to round house kick, Drayton and Bud Selig in the face, those two have been on a mission to destroy the Astros franchise for the past two-three years. Hey Bud how about you tell your precious Brewers to move back to the AL instead of pushing us over there you self-righteous prick.

Sorry... I, for one, big-time side with keeping Pence, at least short of a mega-haul that supposedly no one is willing to give us. Pence at 30? Okay. Pence at 29 next summer? Quite possibly. But Pence at 28? Too young, and RFs of his caliber can't be obtained on the free agent market without a bidding war. And I just don't buy-in to the premise that, even at this point, we're 4 years away from contending. It's the NL freakin Central. If you can play .500 ball through 5 months, you can contend.

Yeah, but let's be honest. We're having trouble playing .350 ball, and Pence's value isn't going to get higher. Still, dealing him in the offseason is a viable option. If he's still an Astro after next year's deadline, god help me.

If Crane wants to trade Pence and there is a very good offer, Crane will have Wade make the trade. He is calling the shots now regardless of the ownership status. What quality prospects did we get for Oswalt? Happ, the worst pitcher in major league baseball, Villar, hitting .234 in minor leagues and Wallace who is mediocre at best; plus had to pay 11 million of Oswalts salary. Pence is a good player but unlikely any team will give more than 1 good prospect. Would you be willing to trade Pence for 1 player of the caliber of Wallace? The Astros are not in an emergency situation where they need to trade Pence now. Teams appear to want to hold on to their prospects even if they have many at least this year. We will know in less than a week. Will a team give up 2 or 3 good prospects for Beltran?

The interpretation of the Oswalt trade is misleading. First and foremost, Villar was just bumped up to AA last month after proving he had nothing left to prove in Lancaster. He fell a double short of the cycle last night, so let's give him just a little time, eh? Wallace was a top 10 prospect in many lists, so you can't knock that acquisition, or again, at least not yet. And Happ's had a tough year, but again, the full story would include the fact he looked pretty solid for the first 2 months after his arrival last season. Overall, how bout we wait a couple of years minimum before giving that trade a grade(?).

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